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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
12-05-2013, 07:24 PM
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One nice thing about these old mechanical cameras, is that you have a cheap and ugly way out - pretend your camera is an SL. Ignore the meter and set the shutter and aperture manually, but exposure guide, guessing, or an external meter (some digital cameras can be used as meters!)
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
08-15-2013, 01:09 PM
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1L6: A fairly rare vacuum tube (electron valve) used in portable shortwave radios without transistors (oldtime radio hobby)
E6: Chemical process for producing color transparency images (slides) from exposed film (photography hobby)
VHF (Very High Frequency): Portion of electromagnetic spectrum (1-10m/30-300 MHz) (amateur radio/distant radio and TV listening hobby)
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Forum: Film SLRs and Compact Film Cameras
08-15-2013, 12:43 PM
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The other day, after taking one picture on what would have been the 64th roll of film shot on the Pentax ZX-7 (aka MZ-7) I bought 11 years ago (S/N 3417504), I went to take another picture, and saw nothing but darkness! I then realized that the mirror was stuck on the up position, and the camera's control system had become completely unresponsive.
One thought that comes to mind is "should I even replace my ZX-7?". It did not prove to be the "dream" camera I thought it would be, Its autofocus proved to be a mixed blessing. If the AF system could not find the right focus, the shutter would NOT FIRE. This caused me to miss many shots when following action and when using long lenses (exactly when I needed the AF). I often turned the AF off in later years to get around the problem. Too, the batteries had a habit of dying in the unused camera between rolls of film, and even taking the batteries out of the camera did not keep the batteries alive for long (strange for lithium batteries). The finder was also hard to use with its small image.
I could switch to my ME Super ($4 at a thrift store several years ago), as it matches the ZX-7s top 1/2000 top shutter speed and has a better finder (the best I have EVER seen), but there was some convenience to the autowind, autofocus and built-in flash of the ZX-7.
Do any other Pentax (or compatible) AF film SLRs have a better AF than the ZX-7 did? (one that would still let me shoot if the focus were not "perfect"). How well does the AF on the ZX-L perform? Is ten years the "life expectancy" of these plastic marvels?
I know many readers would question why I would shoot film instead of digital. I do shoot some digital (with P&S digicams), but until I can get a cheap 80" x 80", 7200x7200 pixel display, that would also display my 10,000 film slides, horizontally or vertically, I'll still be shooting slides if I possibly can. I would get a DSLR body if I had the money and could do some traveling.
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Forum: Welcomes and Introductions
08-15-2013, 12:18 PM
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Been using Pentax film SLRs since 1998, Minolta SLRs, Stereo cameras and RF cameras for longer.
My user name reflects my hobbies. the "E6" refers to photography - I've been shooting slides for 40 years.
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